Thursday, November 22, 2007

Mojahedin of Iran support Iraqi Sheikhs' petition - Washington Post

Thursday, 22 November 2007
Petition Calls for U.N. Probe Into Iran's Influence

NCRI - More than 300,000 Shiite Muslims from southern Iraq signed a petition condemning Iranian regime for fomenting violence in Iraq, Washington Post reported today.

"The Iranians, in fact, have taken over all of south Iraq," said a senior tribal leader from the south who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life. "Their influence is everywhere."

"Their effort is being supported by the People's Mujaheddin Organization of Iran, or Mujaheddin-e Khalq", the Post added.

The report added, "The unusually organized Iraqi rebuke illustrates the divisions that Iran has provoked among Iraq's majority Shiites. The prime minister and major political blocs are closely tied to Iran, but the petition organizers said many citizens are fiercely opposed to Iranian meddling in Iraqi affairs." It further said, "The campaign echoes repeated pronouncements by U.S. officials that Iran has been instigating violence in Iraq and allowing weapons to flow across the border."

In a similar effort last year in June, some 5.2 million Iraqis including 121 political parties and social groups, 700,000 women, 14,000 lawyers and jurists, 19,000 physicians, 35,000 engineers, 320 clerics, 540 professors, 2,000 tribal sheikhs and 300 local officials signed a petition condemning Iranian regime's meddling in their country. The declaration also lent support to People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran whose presence in Iraq had acted as a major obstacle to mullahs' fundamentalist ambitions in Iraq.